I weighed in this am at 221.3 and then took my pictures, and headed to the gym. I had a great workout, in and out quickly and came home, cooked some meals, shot a VLOG and headed to work.

I got a lift to work because my wife didn’t have to work this morning, but I walked the 4km home (in the rain). I am keeping track of my daily steps with a pedometer and have been doing good through the first two days of hitting my 10000 a day goal:

Day 1: 14764 steps
Day 2: 11211 steps

Today’s workout:

leg press 230*20/230*20/230*18/230*16/230*16/230*15
sl dead 40*20/16/15/14
mil b press 40*20/16/15/14
b curl 30*20/20/18/18

floor crunch 15/15/15
leg raise 15/15/15
obli crunch 15/15/15

As I get older (I am 36) I have learned to take my ego out of the gym. Due to my various limitations (various longstanding nagging injuries) I am limited in some range of movements, and also I am not as strong as I once was. As a matter of fact I was SIGNIFICANTLY STRONGER in my late teens, early 20’s then I am now. It used to drive me insane. I know now while always trying to lift more (in good form) I am where I am. I just have to bust my butt in the gym to improve, but sooking about not being as strong as I want won’t get me anywhere.

Well I am off to the Races!  As I have been talking about I joined a new fitness site and am entering their contest which I started today.  I was up at 5:05 this am and on the gym floor by 5:35am.  I had a great workout, came home had some breakfast, then cooked a few meals for the day and now I am about to go to work.

I am going to do my best to get my workouts in first thing in the am.  I work from 11 to 7:30 for the next 6 weeks, and the plan is to get my workouts done by 8 am in order to have time to cook some meals, relax a little bit and not have to rush to work.  It will take some getting used to but I will feel so much better about getting the day off to a great start and getting the workout done early.  Get it done first thing and I won’t have an excuse to not do it later.

For this contest, there is a daily accountability component, which includes DAILY pics.  This keeps you honest, and keeps the motivation high I think.  I have not decided if I will be posting the pics to this blog or not, but they are posted internally on the Shreddersphere (the name of the fitness community).

As you can see below I am also trying my hand at VLOG’ing.  I won’t be posting everyday to that, but I will be posting them a few times a week.  I am determined to make this change in my life, from fat and out of shape and lazy, to fit and healthy.  Daily accountability will go along way to meet that end. 

Well I am going to be late, I best get moving.  Back later today for a daily wrap up.

Tomorrow I am starting a new program and a new mission.  Over the years I have started many of fitness challenges, and have taken hundreds of befores.  Unfortunately I only have a few "Afters".  Take a look below or some of the pictures to see where I have been physique wise over the years.

Way way back!  20 years ago. 

About 175 lbs, after having been at all time high of 209 back in 96.

look at the belly, around 2004 I think

2007

My wife and I last fall, the untucked shirt, has been a staple of mine, sigh

yeeesh look at the gut

Couple weeks ago in Florida

This Summer, I will have pictures to show that I can be proud of!

Had a great workout today. My enthusiasm is ramping up. This is not unusual for me. If you haven’t read my old blogs, and there have been a lot of fitness blogs (every fitness post, along with 8 years of other posts can be found here I often start lie a ball of fire, but then it dies down. Well, I am not going to say much. I am just going to let my actions and my results speak for me.

I am down 3 inches and 7 pounds since I restarted down this road, two weeks ago from yesterday. I am hitting the gym with gusto, and I am eating well. I simply must get healthy, and I need to get fit, in order to have the energy to live the life I want to live. I must be a better example for my family. And in the weeks and months to come, I will be.

What’s this ? Posting two days in a row? Can it be?

So today I started the new program I started yesterday. More info on it can be found at www.rtp-book.com. It’s an interesting program, and system and I am going to follow it to a letter for 84 days starting next Monday at the latest, but hopefully sooner. I need to finish through all the documentation for it and get all my ducks in a row.

I will be posting here a lot more often in the weeks and months to come. I do better when I hold myself accountable, and I promise I won’t stop writing or go deleting the blog when I run into a setback. I need to get healthy. I need to put all this back bs behind me once and for all and get healthy. My one reader will have much more to read going forward!

Besides getting to the gym this AM, I also biked to work which is 4km both ways. Not a marathon, but every bit of activity helps. My pedometer says i got just over 10000 steps, I got 8 km of biking to and from work, and I got my weights in. Add in I had a good day of eating, and its a great day.

So been quiet for a couple days, and not for the reason you may think. I woke up Thursday morning in huge pain. I am talking, sitting on the toilet sick to my stomach with a bucket on my knees because i thought I was going to toss my cookies pain. Nice huh?

I had woken up to huge muscle spasms in my back. They lasted roughly 2.5 days. So frustrating. So I made a decision. Though these latest spasms happened in my sleep Wednesday night/Thursday morning and were not due to something I did directly, they do really solidify one thing. I need to get my shit together and lose this unhealthy weight /fat and get my back/core muscles in order.

I have decided to join a fantastic group that I found through the rtp-blog.com. I have been following Adam’s writing for a long time and finally decided to join in the fun. I will be in the contest that he is running jointly with Tom Venuto of Burnthefat.com but more importantly I will be getting serious about getting this done once and for all.

Now all that being said, I have not fallen off the wagon. The last few days I didn’t get much exercise because quite frankly, I have been flat on my back for much of it in a painkiller/muscle relaxant haze. However I did at the minimum get a walk in Friday and Saturday and two long walks today. My back is feeling much better today and I have not had to take any medication. I take medication very minimally, and the fact that I too 4 percocet/muscle relaxants over the past 3 days says a lot to me, considering that is more than I have taken than the last 6 months combined. I ate ok over the last couple days and the damage was minimal.

I am going over the materials included with the RTP stuff and I am gonna be at the gym in the morning before work tommorrow. I will be back tommorrow.

So thus far, accept for one night over xmas at a Lions club where we played a few games, and another night where i played in a bar for two hours, I have played nearly all my darts in my basement. One thing about my basement, is my ceilings are low. Tonight I went over to my buddy Zeeks house, probably the best player at this point of my group of buddies.

We were having an nhl playoff hockey pool, and while we were waiting to start, and afterwards for a bit we played a few games. We played 4 games of 3 handed 301 at 5 bucks a game, and 2 games of baseball (the first 10 innings, the second 20 innings). I also played one game against my buddy Donnie which I won. Of the 3 handed games, I won 2/4 of the 301, and 1 of 2 in the baseball. I played pretty well tonight, and was happy, and had alot of fun.

I am not good enough yet to play for any more than 2-5 bucks a game, and actually play quite a bit just for the competition. Really I play much more darts by myself practicing, probably by a factor of 5, than I do against the boys. It’s fun to practice through the week, and then once a week or whatever play against the boys.

As always enjoying getting a few games in and also playing some different than the 301 or whatever once in a while. Didn’t get to play cricket, my favorite game thus far, but played 2 games of baseball also a fun game. I am going to do some research and look to see some other games.

Ok, I am roughly a week back into the fitness arena. The first week has been an improvement over how I have been living, but by no means perfect.

The Good: I am down 6 pounds and 2 inches from my waist! (YAY!!)

The Bad: I still ate off plan, and I drank on two occasions (something I have not done in years in the same week)

Keeping a fitness blog for me is about accountability. Even if I am only being accountable to myself. I don’t care if a single person is reading this. So why don’t I keep a private journal? Well, not sure, lol. Being accountable only works though if I write the good and the bad. So going forward, I hope to update a few times a week with how I am doing. I doubt very much I will post everyday, but I do need to update several times a week, just to keep myself honest.

I just got back from the gym, and had a great workout. I am training one bodypart a day with weights, and doing cardio everyday as well. Back workout and 20 min on the treadmill was 42 min total. Works for me. I have spent much of the past 3 weeks on vacation or off. This week is my first full week back so I am getting back to reality. For the next 7 weeks I am working 11:00 am til 7:30 pm, so the plan is workouts in the am at the gym, a little wii at night. Simple enough.

Today’s weights:

fixed pulldown 4 sets 12 reps
hammer pdown 3 sets 10,10,8
cable row 3 sets 10,10,10
hyperext 10,10,9(last set holding 5 lbs weight)

treadmill 20 min fast walking 3.8-4 mph 140 cal, 1.25 distance

off for a quick bite to eat and then to work. Make it a great week!

I am always looking for new games to practice my darts, and the past couple days I have been playing a game I am calling 100’s for a lack of a better name. I found this game by looking for practice games and happening upon pro player, David Depriest’s site here.

So me being a stats junky, I of course started a spreadsheet in google docs that I will keep updated. It can be found here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=puWlBPdx3JZApcaiOt5P0Ww

The thing I think that has drawn me to darts, is that it is something that I can do by myself to improve. I am a hyper competitive person, even against myself. It is by playing as much as possible, constantly trying to improve, that will help me to improve as quickly as possible.